The present invention relates to equipment carriers, such as carriers for bicycles, skis, luggage or the like, which are to be mounted onto a vehicle trunk lid or door.
Carriers of this type are encountering increasing favour among users with respect to carriers which are to be mounted on the vehicle roof, also due to the inconvenience of placing the equipment (e.g. a bicycle) on the vehicle roof, particularly with relatively tall vehicles such as Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV), vans or others.
It is particularly important for an equipment carrier of the type to be mounted on a trunk lid or door that it can be mounted and removed with very quick and simple operations by the user. Equipment carriers of this type which have been proposed heretofore are not able to solve this problem very satisfactorily. A conventional equipment carrier for mounting on a vehicle trunk lid or door comprises a frame with a structure for carrying one or more items of equipment and provided with engagement means for engaging the rear trunk lid or door of the vehicle. In order to safely secure the carrier to the vehicle, a number of straps or belts are provided which are used to connect the frame of the carrier to the vehicle structure. The operation of arranging these straps is relatively complicated and time-consuming, and the same is true when the carrier must be removed from the vehicle. Moreover, the addition of these straps gives rise to a not very attractive appearance of the carrier once it has been mounted on the vehicle.